Please don't write me after March 1st. and ask for the old price
-Sorry, but I cannot make any exceptions. It's just not fair to charge some
folks the old amount, while others are paying full price.

ASD will be upon us soon. The ASD Wholesale trade show in Las Vegas will be
held at the Las Vegas Convention Center from March 19 - 22 (Sunday -
Wednesday).
Here is the link to register
. I am not speaking this year, but I am attending and can sometimes find
time to meet with folks who are my readers (I can't guarantee that, as I
also need time to attend the show, but I always try to meet with as many
folks as I can). I don't start making appointments until I get close to the
show, so please don't write me now asking for an appointment.

If you act now, there are plenty of great hotel deals (After you register,
check out the hotel booking deals through the link on the registration
page).

If you want convenience, the Westgate Hotel (formerly the LVH) is right
next to the convention center (easy walking distance) and they have some
good deals if you book soon. Call them at 1-855-516-1090 (You can get
better deals by calling them instead of going online).

If you want a little luxury - I have a special deal with the Wynn and
Encore Suites Hotel. You can get a luxury room at the Wynn Hotel - or a
King Suite at the Wynn Encore (right next door to the Wynn). The deal for
my readers is $149 per night - the regular price is $295 per night (Sunday
through Thursday - which covers all the dates of the show).

Call 1-855-770-7171 and mention registration code JOYV before you register.
This deal defaults to the Wynn Hotel, but if you call in the next week or
so, and ask while you are on the phone, you can usually upgrade for free to
a King Suite next door at the Encore (Which is where I always stay).

Trip Advisor
just announced a special on Las Vegas Hotels -and if you book through them,
you could win $15,000

Amazon has just updated their Associates (Affiliate) agreement. Amazon
Affiliates residing in Missouri, Rhode Island and Vermont, will now be able
to participate in the Amazon affiliate program.

Rumors about Amazon offering to accept PayPal, are just that --
Rumors. There have been several stories on business sites in the
past week stating that Amazon and PayPal are close to a deal. I checked
with a source at Amazon, and they debunked the story. PayPal has contacted
Amazon -and pitched their service -but they have also done that with
several large online sellers. As far as I can tell -the only thing Amazon
will admit to, is getting a sales pitch.

eBay 2017 Financial Results are a Good news/bad news scenario. At
5% growth in GMV (sales) in 2017, eBay did finish ahead of Wall Street
expectations -and therefore, their stock is up pretty well. But this was
only a tad over 2016 results. As of this writing, Amazon has not yet
released their 2017 financials, but Amazon's stock is up strongly as Wall
Street expects strong sales and profits. I predict they will be way larger
growth than eBay.

It does look like eBay has turned the corner on operations (Finally!), but
has a long way to go to catch Amazon.

One good thing -eBay is sitting on almost $11 Billion in cash, that it
could use for acquisitions or, to invest in operations. Most of that is
sitting overseas to avoid 35% US taxes.

But, the new Congress says they will come up with a one-time tax reduction
for the many companies in that situation. The tax reduction will be part of
the new Corporate Tax Plan to lower corporate taxes in the US.

More competition on Amazon from China.
Amazon has begun shipping products from Chinese merchant partners to its
U.S. warehouses via their own ocean freight operation. Unlike many of the
rumors surrounding this program -Amazon has NOT purchased its own ships.
Instead Amazon is now handling the shipment of goods from Chinese retailers
that sell on its platform, to its many US warehouses, so their goods can be
sold via FBA

Previously Amazon left shipping to 3rd-party global
transportation companies. Essentially, Amazon has become its own freight
forwarder -but with only one customer - themselves. And their shipping
rates are ridiculously low.

What does this mean for US, Japanese and European based FBA sellers? It is
not good news. Chinese sellers used to compete with US sellers via the
E-Packet program, whereby, Chinese sellers can ship goods to the US at
ridiculously low prices such as $1.50 for a 2-pound shipment. When they
were doing that, US sellers could still compete by using FBA, so unhappy
customers could just return things to a US address, rather than spending a
fortune -taking weeks to return an item overseas.

But now, with this cheap shipping service, Amazon is getting Chinese
sellers to use FBA, which makes it harder for us sellers to compete. This
is another hit on US and European sellers who use FBA. But, what can you
do? Just like when you were a kid -If you play in someone else's sandbox
-you have to follow their rules.

If you sell on several different platforms, this won't work for you. But,
if you are like me (I only sell on Amazon and eBay), then you might take a
good look at
JoeLister.
If you are selling on Amazon -and not selling on eBay, you might want to give
it a try. Here is why you should do that:

Amazon clearly outsells eBay - We sell about 7 to 8 items on Amazon
for every 1 we sell on eBay (eBay is a little better over the
Christmas selling season). But, eBay still works out to about 15%
of our business. Who wouldn't want to grow their business 15%, with
very little effort.

When you use Amazon fulfillment, Amazon passes their low shipping
rates onto you. This allows you to be more competitive on eBay (I
use the low rates to offer free shipping).

eBay fees are somewhat lower than Amazon, so you make a little more
money on each sale

With JoeLister, you can launch eBay listings direct from JoeLister in less
than 1 minute. JoeLister does this by importing your FBA inventory
(JoeLister now also handles Merchant Fulfilled inventory, but since I am
100% FBA, I haven't tried that).

List in one click
- Joe automatically creates your eBay listings with images,
descriptions, and product info. Publish hundreds of listings in
just one click -or modify your listing in less than one
minute.

Quantity Synchronization
- Joe will always keep your item quantities in sync between Amazon
and eBay. You will never double-sell a product again. If your FBA
inventory goes to zero, Joe will set your eBay listing to zero
also.

Automatic Fulfillment
- When your items sell on eBay (and the payment is received),
JoeLister automatically creates a fulfillment order on Amazon (for
shipment to your eBay buyer) for shipping.

I couldn't have said it better than Mr. Morris. If you are -or ever have
been, deeply in debt, then you understand the wisdom of that statement.

This article is somewhat long, but if you are seriously in debt, I
suggest you stick with it and read it to the end.

My wife and I were once horribly in debt. The only thing that saved me over
the years, was that my skills were in such demand, I kept getting raises,
promotions and new jobs that resulted in a higher income year-after-year.
The problem was, I was young at the time and figured that working in my
field (International marketing and sales), would always be my savior.

Every time I got a raise, instead of paying off my debt, I would just go
out and buy something else I wanted like a new deluxe stereo system -or a
Porsche. (At the time I had a Lexus and a Porsche that I owed money on, and
my wife had a 3-year old SUV that was paid off).

Then one day - I wasn't so young anymore, and those jobs began to become
scarce. I was still earning a good income, but I could see problems on the
horizon. My wife and I sat down one day and said to each other: "We have to
get out of debt." At the time, our total debts were about $320,000, and we
always seemed to come up a bit short each month.

And, once we started doing it, we liked the results so much, we decided to
keep going until we were 100% out of debt -including our mortgage, which
was just over $200,000 at the time. That was after a few years of paying
the minimum each month.

Once we got started, we realized this was not only fairly easy -it was
pretty painless as well.

There are several get-out-of-debt systems out there. Some of these
so-called experts, charge as much as $300, or more, to get their system. I
am going to give you my system for free.

Besides getting out of debt, we decided we needed a cash fund for
emergencies -and later, for just when we wanted to buy something or go
somewhere. So, in addition to getting out of debt, we also started a
savings fund at the same time. This did add a couple months to the time it
took to get out of debt -but the extra cash came in handy several times.

With the system I am about to show you, it took us about 2 years to get 95%
out of debt, and we had about $4,000 in our cash fund. (We still owe about
$14,000 on our mortgage -but that will be down to zero in 3 months).

OK - Here we go. As you read this you may be a bit skeptical, but trust me
-this works, and since it's free, you have nothing to lose.

Much like booster rockets on a large airplane -I realized we needed some
type of accelerator to get us started. Around the time we started this
plan, my wife and I had just started selling on eBay (April 1999). At
first, it was just a hobby, but eventually we went full-time and still do
that (and Amazon) today.

We had been selling and earning a few hundred dollars a month -but our goal
for the accelerator payment was $1000. So we started upstairs in a spare
bedroom, and went through the whole house ending in the basement, grabbing
everything that we hadn't used in the last six to twelve months. (We even
took some toys our boys had lost interest in -and they never missed them).

We spent a couple days taking photographs and writing descriptions, started
everything on eBay at $1 -no reserve in a 7-day auction. At the end of
seven days, all but 3 or 4 items had sold -and instead of $1000 -we
realized just over $2,600. We also had a few very large and heavy items we
did not want to ship, so we sold those on Craigslist, which was very new at
the time. This raised about another $450, bringing our total to slightly
over $3,050.

Whether you have a garage sale, go to a street fair or flea market -or sell
on eBay and/or Craigslist, you need an accelerator to get you started. This
will become obvious as you see how the program works.

The theory behind my program is to prioritize - and pay off your smallest
debts first.

Let's take a look at what we owed in debts, (The monthly payments are in
parentheses):

$200,110

First mortgage

($1,950)

70,200

Two cars

($660)

15,000

2nd Mortgage line of credit

($310)

11,420

Furniture loan

($278.00)

9,100

Sears card - kitchen remodel

($290)

8,955

Credit card #2

($298)

5,215

Credit card #1

($165)

90

Overdue gardening bill

($90)

$320,000

Total monthly debts

(These debts do not include monthly household payments such as food,
utilities, telephone, etc.). At the time, we had a savings account of $229,
which was for Christmas gifts for the kids (This was in June, and we were
adding $20 month, so we would have $329 by December 1st).

Notice that I have arranged these in descending order of amount owed. This
is your first step in this plan.

Once you have arranged your debts in order with the largest one first, we
can get started. Notice that I have not mentioned interest rates. Many
reasonable people (and some financial gurus) think you should pay off your
highest interest rate debts first -but if you go that way, it will take a
lot longer.

Now, look at your debts, and use your accelerator money to pay off the
lowest debt first and pay the remainder of the next lowest debt. In my
case, I had $3,050 in accelerator funds. So, I paid off the $90 debt to my
gardener and applied the rest ($2,960) to my lowest amount credit card
($5,215), leaving me with a $2,255 balance on the credit card. My minimum
monthly payment on my credit card was $165 which I was already making. Once
I made the $2,410 payment, my new minimum was $74. Since I was already able
to pay the $165 a month, I kept paying that amount on my card each month.

This way it took me 13 months to pay off that card. Yes, I know that is a
long time, but keep reading -I am going to show you a way to speed that up.

Now, once you pay that first and second debt off -let's attack the third
one. The monthly payment on that bill was $298. If I add the $165 from the
last paid off debt to that one, I could now pay $463 each month. That works
out to 19 months to pay off the next debt. As I said, that is quite long,
but I am going to show you how to reduce that time substantially.

So, lets do that now.

There is an old truism that says: You can't budget your way out of debt.
That is very true - but making some adjustments to your budget can really
speed up the process.

In our case (The example I have used so far), we were $320,000 in debt
including our mortgage. Our monthly take-home W2 income was $5,950 (that is
not a bad income today -but it was a really good income in 1999). Our
mortgage and other debt payments came to $3,951.

So after debt payments we had $1,999 left to pay for food, utilities,
insurance and gas for the cars, entertainment and other expenses.

I am sure that most of you reading this, would not feel sorry for someone
with that income. But, the problem was, we were used to living large at
that income level -but it got to the point we were living paycheck to
paycheck -and sometimes coming up short. Not to mention that we were
contributing very little to our savings and retirement income.

So we took a look at our budget. One thing we liked to do was go out for a
weekly movie and Pizza once a week. By the time we paid for movie tickets,
drinks, popcorn and Pizza, for us and two kids, that came to approximately
$65 a week. It was a bit of a bummer for the kids, but we cut our movie
nights to one per month. We started renting from Blockbuster (remember
them?) and making our own popcorn. Just doing that, saved us about $175 per
month.

The next thing I did was take a look at our food budget. We were in the
habit of going to the market and buying fresh food daily. By doing some
meal planning and buying a week's worth of groceries at a time, we were
able to save almost $50 week - or $200 per month.

The next thing I did was take a look at our cars. Since my wife's SUV was
paid off -it was a no-brainer to keep that. I still needed a fairly nice
car for work, so I sold my Lexus and my Porsche and bought a late model,
low-mileage Infinity for about $18,000. I financed it for 5 years which
brought my payments from $660 per month on two cars, down to $316 a month
for one (a savings of $344 per month). We also saved money on insurance,
oil changes, tires and maintenance since we now had one-fewer cars.

We kept looking to reduce other expenses and found a few small ones that
added up to slightly over $200 and we applied all of that to savings.

Now, don't go crazy reducing your budget.
You don't want to be miserable and start eating beans every night. The
point is to look for things you can easily do without, and would not make
you really unhappy if they went away.

Yes, I hated giving up my Porsche, but when I thought about it, I realized
that I was being really selfish since I was the only person who drove it.
Another reason was, my two boys were getting close to driving age, and I
didn't want them driving it. (Giving a young teenager a super-fast sports
car is a recipe for disaster)

But just looking at the big expenses, our total came to $719 per month. If
you add that $719 per month to your payments on the first credit card, the
time to pay that off, goes from 13 months to 3 months (I am rounding off
for simplicity).

Now when you get to the second credit card with a balance of $8,955, you
add up your budget savings $719, the amount you now pay $298, and the $165
you used to pay on your second card. This gives you a total payment of
$1,182. Apply that to the $8,955 balance and instead of 19 months, you can
pay that off in about 8 months.

I am not going to keep going with each payment, because I think you get the
idea. We kept paying our debts down this way until all we had left was our
mortgage. At that time, we were able to apply $3690 to each mortgage
payment. After a few months, once the balanced was reduced, we were able to
send in a full double payment each month. At that rate, you can pay off
your mortgage pretty quickly. Depending on the length, interest rate, and
size of your mortgage -double payments should pay off a 30-year mortgage
anywhere from 8 to 12 years.

However, it is 17 years later and we still owe about $14,000 on our
mortgage. Why is that you ask?

Well, there are two reasons.

About that time, we started selling on eBay and we started using
some of our new found cash to buy inventory to resell. (But -that
is another story)

A couple of years into our debt reduction, we got serious about
saving money, so I started putting $500 a month into savings -and
since my employer at the time matched 5% of my salary (Just over
$7,500 a month), I raised my 401K contribution from 1% of my salary
to the full 5% matching amount, which came to an extra $300 a
month. $500 + $300 = $800, so that came out of our debt

These two things reduced the monthly amount we had available to pay, so our
program still worked -it just took a little longer.

Let's review how this works:

Organize your debts in order of the total debt in descending order,
with the largest one first

Create some way to accumulate an amount of cash -your accelerator
(garage sale, sell on eBay, Amazon or Craigslist, volunteer for
overtime at work, etc.)

Use the cash you raise, to pay off, or apply to, your smallest
total debt(s)

Once you pay off that debt, use the money you were paying on the
smallest debt, plus what you are already paying on the
second-smallest debt towards that one, until it's paid off.

Now, repeat that with the next smallest debt and keep going until
all your debts are paid off.

You can speed this process up by finding extraneous items in your
household budget that you can easily do without.

If you are in great shape with your debts and only owe a small amount, and
still have some disposable income, do this anyway. Just think how great it
would feel to have your car(s) paid off, and to own your home outright with
no mortgage.

So there you have it -my plan, including a real example, of how you can get
out of debt -usually in less than 2 years. It's not that difficult. But the
thing is, you can't procrastinate -you have to get started.

People find products on Amazon by typing terms and words into the search
box on Amazon.com. For example, someone might type Womenís sweaters and get
a really wide listing such as this one below:

But, most people have learned to narrow their search to specifically what
they are looking for. Using the previous example of sweaters, it is more
likely buyers will type a more descriptive term into the search box, such as:
"womenís plus size cotton sweaters." That would bring up results like these.

The Amazon search engine currently looks for matching words, or terms, in
four places when someone types something into the Search Bar on Amazon.

NOTE:
Amazon recently announced that their search engine would only look in the
title and Keyword Terms field when looking for a match. However, I have
been following this, and as for now, Amazon is still looking in the
following four places -although I don't know how long this will last.

Item Title

Bullet Points

Product Description

Keyword Terms created when a seller creates the listing

Let's look at each one.

Item Title
- Make sure your title accurately describes what you are selling, but also
be sure and include important keywords people search for such as brand,
size, model number, gender and so on. Note - Amazon is now limiting the
number of characters in a title (it's different by category)

Bullet points
- Amazon gives you five bullet points you can fill out when creating a
listing. This is another place you can include key words. The other
important thing you can do with bullet points is list key information or
benefits. (Studies have shown that well over 50% of buyers on Amazon, only
read the bullet points -and never make it to the product description

Product Description
-You can write up to 1000 words in most description fields. In some
categories, the word count allowed is limited. I like to use the
description to repeat high-ranking keywords (I will explain those below).
Amazon's search engine is highly sophisticated. The keyword instructions in
the Amazon help files say you should never repeat keywords, but I have
found that if I repeat keywords from the title and bullets in the product
description -my listings tend to come up better in search. As I said,
Amazon disputes this -but my own personal experience -it works. (Again,
this may change when Amazon finally rolls out their new search algorithms,
but for now you can still use this technique.

Since I launch a large number of new or unique listings (from Private
Label, New Products I source that are not on Amazon, and bundles), It is
really critical that my new listings be found quickly. Otherwise, the
inventory carrying costs and Amazon storage fees will kill me.

I am constantly creating new listings -so it is important to the success of
my business, that my new listings be found quickly. Since I have never been
that successful with keyword PPC advertising, I find that spending time
finding, and using, good keywords, works just as well -and in many cases
better -and, best of all it is essentially free, whereas ads cost money.

High Ranking Keywords

In the above topic of using keywords in product descriptions, I mentioned high ranking keywords. So let's explain what those are about.
Keyword research tools show you the number of searches performed in a week,
month, or year for a specific keyword, or keyword phrase.

Basically a high ranking keyword is one that ranks near the top in number
of searches compared to other words or terms. There are many keyword tools
on the market and they sell for prices from zero to several hundred
dollars. Here are just a few:

Google AdWords
(free if you have a Google account). AdWords is optimized for keywords used
in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.

Keyword Eye
(Free for the first 100 words searched, then it goes for $5.00 per month)

Keyword Spy
is also free -but it is more aimed at finding keywords optimized for PPC
advertising

Keywords Analyzer
is in my opinion one of the best tools on the market -but at $279 per
month, its very pricy.

Merchantwords
is optimized for Amazon (but works pretty well for eBay too). Single user
is priced at $30 per month, but
use this link
for my readers who get it for $9 per month.

Of those on the list -I have used Google AdWords, Keywords Analyzer and
Merchantwords, which I currently use. Google and Keywords advertiser are
excellent tools if you do PPC advertising -but they are not designed for
consumer shopping searches.

Merchantwords
,
however is designed for Amazon, and although no perfect -it works quite
well 99% of the time. Here is a shot of a results page from Merchantwords.

I recently picked up a line of fashion jewelry toe rings and they were not
already listed on Amazon, so I had to create several listings. The first
thing I did was research keywords I could use in the listing.

Merchantwords gives you the monthly search volume on Amazon. As you can
see, the first keyword is simply toe rings at 155,600 searches
average per month. This brings me to another good use for Merchantwords
which is to use the tool for product research. When I was thinking of
sourcing the toe rings, I checked here to see if there was enough search
volume to make toe rings worthwhile to carry. At 155,600 that looked pretty
good. But had that number been only 50,000 or less, I would have passed on
this product. If only 2% of the people who search for toe rings end up
buying, that works out to over 3100 toe rings sold per month on Amazon
(more at Christmastime and in the summer months when sandal sales are up).
That is actually better than a lot of products that are steady sellers.

Now let's go back to high density keywords. If you look at the results, the
top 5 keywords are:

Toe rings

Toe rings for women

Infinity toe rings

Toe ring sandals

Toe ring silver

OK - since the word "toe ring" is already in my title, bullets and
description -I am not going to use that again in my keyword field. Looking
at the next one, "toe rings for women," with 41,000 searches, that is
certainly one I would work in. Being a man, I assumed that only women wore
toe rings, so I would not have thought of that one. That shows you the
value of a keyword research tool.

The next one, Infinity toe rings, is interesting. None of the toe rings I
am selling use the infinity symbol, but that may be OK. People searching
for a specific design, may only be interested in that one design -But,
these people actually use toe rings, and if my designs appear on the same
page, someone looking at the page may see mine and think its very beautiful
and click on it.

The next one, toe ring sandals is for a product in the shoe category. I
could use that on the same theory as the infinity ring, but Amazon
considers using a brand name you are not selling -or using a product from
an entirely different category, to be keyword spamming -and can get you in
trouble.

Now on to the last one "Toe ring silver." As it turns out, I am selling
both gold and silver (plated) toe rings. If you look at the list,Gold toe rings have the identical search volume as silver toe rings, so I would use both of these for the appropriate
product.

So, keyword density is nothing more than picking keywords with the highest
search volume and working them into your listing.

Let's look at a few do's and don'ts when using keywords in listings:

Do's

Use a keyword tool when you create new listings. It never ceases to
amaze me when my tool comes up with words and terms I never would
have thought of.

If you are selling a brand name product, always use the brand name
in the title. This is not related to keyword searches because
Amazon already includes the brand when people search. However, the
brand name is very tiny in the listing, and does not show up on the
search results page. But if people are searching for a specific
brand name, if you have it in the title, it will stand out.

Be sure to include keywords lower on the search volume list. If the
top 2 or 3 terms are in the 60,000 range and you find another term
lower down that is only 10,000, that is still 333 searches a day
which is not bad.

Don'ts

Do not use keywords from products in a different category or brand
you are not selling. For example, if you are selling food
processors; when you do a search, you will find that some of the
most searched terms are food network food processor,kitchenaid food processor and Cuisinart food processor. Since these brands have search
volumes in the hundreds of thousands, it may be tempting to sneak
in a keyword, but if you do, you could jeopardize your account.

Here is a little chart from Amazon that shows unacceptable
keywords.

Do not repeat keywords in the keyword field in your listing that
you have used in the title. This is the one place where it pays not
to repeat a keyword.

Think in terms of keyword terms -rather than single words. Very few
people type single words into the search field anymore. In fact, I
should point out that in this article when I use the wordkeyword, I actually mean keywords and keyword terms.

When you are using a search tool such as
Merchantwords
,
be sure and try several different phrases to start -as each
different phrase gets you different results.

So there you have it -all my current wisdom on the topic of keywords. I
might as well say that this is a controversial subject with many different
opinions, and mine is really only one of them. So don't be afraid to do
some more research on this topic and look for ideas from others. Just be
wary of anyone that suggests ways to break the rules.

This article is a guest article by Evangeline Chang from
ChinaDivision.
ChinaDivision is a local company that provides one-stop warehousing, shipping and
order fulfillment service
for e-commerce online sellers. They also provide customized value-added
services including assembly, customized packages and business inserts.

Because of the inexpensive and decent quality of made-in-China products,
and the world biggest B2B platform Alibaba, a lot of entrepreneurs are now
sourcing from China. But when it comes to global shipping, the logistics
(Storage, shipping, paperwork, etc.) fees can be a problem. Logistics fees
often account for a large part of the total cost in the sale of physical
items. You have to do your best to cut them if you want more profit.

There are some ways to cut the cost.

Storage

Use China local warehouses. Almost every aspect of logistics will generate
cost, so it's better to stock your goods in the right location. Consider
the customer is worldwide, it's wise to stock the goods somewhere "near
source", because it cuts the shipping fee from the manufacturer to the
warehouse. Not only that, China local warehouses also have more
cost-effective labor and other supporting services.

Choose more cost-effective warehousing services.

Outsourcing all the warehousing transactions can be a big hassle-saver,
because the standard warehousing service includes all the pick & pack,
insurance and inventory management. As I mentioned earlier, cheaper labor
leads to cheaper manual operation fees, which can reduce some of the
warehousing cost. But cost-effective doesn't have to mean low quality.

Good warehousing services must have these characteristics:

Your goods are covered by adequate insurance

With so many goods in stock, nobody can afford to lose them. But sometimes
bad things happen and you have to be prepared. Buying insurance is one of
the ways. Qualified warehousing service providers usually buy insurance for
their entire warehouse. It means they can get big-client-prices and all of
the goods in their custody are covered. Whether it's an earthquake, flood,
other force majeure issues, or lost or damaged in the handling process, you
can get compensation for your loss. It's way more cost-effective than
buying insurance by yourself.

Stocking and storage fees

Inventory can take a big part of the budget for starters, if you have to
keep some of your products in stock, it's better to choose the
starter-friendly warehousing provider. Amazon FBA take monthly inventory
storage fees. This can be tough for starters who only sell seasonal
products-imagine you only sell holiday decorations before and after
Christmas but still have to pay for the not sold out inventory in summer.
It's better to seek help from warehousing providers who take a discounted
price for small goods or first several month's free service.

Shipping

As soon as the goods leave the warehouse, you are into a more complex
process, but there are still ways to cut the cost.

Shipping fee negotiation. The world leading express carriers like UPS, DHL,
EMS, etc., all have discounted price for long-term customers, so it's
possible for you to negotiate with them. If you have trouble with
communication or just don't have the energy or time, you can have the
third-party fulfillment organizations to negotiate for you, it's more
likely to get a better deal because they have more goods to ship and
normally a closer cooperation with the carriers.

Flexible shipping solution

The word "flexible" means after considering the location of the warehouse,
it's better to have multiple options on the choice of transport route and
express carriers, depending on the weight/volume of the products, the
location of the buyer, and other actual situations.

Normally, there are a variety of real-time changing situations that occur
in international transportation, because it involves the weather, traffic,
strikes and sometimes policy changes of multiple countries or areas. You
need work out more than one combinations to deal with different seasons,
product types, shipping destinations, etc., or the shipping aspect may
complicate your shipping when you should have the best sales.

Get expert's opinion on tax and import issues

Different countries or areas have different import policies and taxes. For
example, if you import goods into the Netherlands from outside the European
Union, you will usually have to pay import duties, VAT and in some cases
excise duty. But if you import goods to Hong Kong, it will be duty free. So
when you are choosing your transportation route or dealing with the customs
declaration, it's better to seek for the expert's help. It can cut logistic
fees if you know something about reasonable tax avoidance.

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ChinaDivision
is a China local company which provides one-stop
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for e-commerce online sellers and crowdfunding project creators. The highly
customizable services ranging from China warehousing, order fulfillment,
global shipping to value-added services.

I am a believer in the notion that there is never a bad time to
start a business, but there are some times that are better than others. The
month of January is one of them. Let's look at some of those reasons.

If you incorporate, or form an LLC (which I strongly recommend),
starting in January means you only have to do one set of taxes for
the year. If you are a sole proprietor from January to June (or any
month), then you will have to do a Schedule C., Statement of profit or loss, for the period
from January to June, then do separate corporate (or LLC) returns
for the second half of the year.

The period after Christmas is the best time of year to buy both
from liquidators and wholesale providers

Most chain stores liquidate their excess inventory in
January. The liquidation and surplus field is so full of
merchandise in January and early February that everyone is
cutting prices and there are great deals to be had.

A similar thing happens to regular wholesalers. Typically,
manufacturers introduce new products just before Christmas.
When they do this it means they have discontinued items
they want to dump. But, these discontinued items are still
very sellable -and often the wholesale price is way below
the wholesale price you had been paying.

Here is an example: I had one product that sold (wholesale)
for $26.90 per case of 12. That worked out to $2.25 each.
In the case, the only change was to the packaging and the
size, (The new product came in a slightly larger size).

I was completely out after Christmas and emailed my
supplier to order two more cases. She came back to me, that
the package design and size had changed. She said, if I
still wanted the old design, she had 6 cases left and would
sell them for $19 a case. That worked out to $1.58 each
-well below the $2.25 I had been paying. So I told her I
would take them all.

That was not the only product that happened to. I had 4
other suppliers contact me with similar offers, which I
took.

One of the most irritating things about having a corporation or LLC
is renewing your paperwork each year. The last thing I want to do
is deal with that from October to December when I am getting ready
for the hot Christmas selling season. By forming your corporation
in January, you can deal with this when you are not so busy.

It pays to start your business off on the right foot. January is
not the slowest month of the year, because a lot of folks get gift
cards for Christmas, but it is a lot slower than the Christmas
selling season. This gives you time to research new products and
plan your wholesale strategy. Valentines Day is February 14th,
Mother's Day is May 14th and Father's Day
is June 18th. These are great times to sell -and you can
really build up some cash on these great selling days.

Also, the summer selling season (Toys, beach ware and other summer
related things including sports equipment, beach bags and so on),
is about to begin, so you want to start sourcing those items in the
March/April timeframe. This way you will have them ready to sell by
May/June and all the way through July.

Just before January you are busy -and distracted, by the holidays.
Getting Thanksgiving and Christmas behind you, frees up your time
to focus and concentrate on starting your business.

So there you have it -My take on why January is the best month to start a
new business -online or otherwise.

Before we get started, lets look into some important upcoming wholesale
sourcing dates. First of all, you can forget Valentines Day. If you donít
have your products available for sale by January 10th.
(About three weeks ago), then you completely missed the
Valentines selling season.

We are now 100% FBA. I find it takes me about five or six weeks from the time,
I order a product, get it delivered to me, and get it off to, and received
by Amazon.

So, with that in mind, letís look at some upcoming dates.

Motherís Day May 14th

Fatherís Day June 18th

Independence Day July 4th.

For most holidays, you want your goods available for sale at least six weeks
before the holiday. So, calculate 6 weeks plus the 5 weeks it takes to get
products in and set the reminders to pop up in your computer about 11 or 12
weeks before the holiday.

One More Thing Ė I have pointed out before that many of the websites
listed below are retail websites. That is because, many wholesale suppliers do
not want retail customers seeing their wholesale prices. When you run into one
of the retail websites, just use the contact form on the website to politely
request wholesale or reseller information.

DS Secrets
manufacturer a unique line of hair brushes and other hair care products.

Highland Graphics
sells several unique products including coasters, trivets, cutting boards,
clocks and many other decorative gifts with vivid reproductions of many top
selling artists around the country.

Please Note:
Some of the products and
services mentioned in this website, in articles, banner ads and
newsletters and blog posts are for products and services for which I
earn a referral fee or commission. We always evaluate anything we
recommend very carefully and each year we turn down literally dozens
of opportunities to recommend products or services where we can earn
a commission. Even though we earn a fee on some of our
recommendations, we only recommend products and services that we
feel will deliver good value and with rare exceptions, they all come
with a money back guarantee.